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Neptune or tlie bunyip ! Immortal powers ! It had the same e^lect 
on me as the spirit that appeared to Job. 
" Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake, 
And as my damp hair stiffened thus it spake, 
' Behold the Colonial Botanist !' " 
And then there came another splash, and the museum zoologist rose 
from the depths and briefly remarked, " Hooray !" 
This was the first appearance of the scientists in their great back 
action double splash natatorial feats, and certainly the agility they 
displayed and the observations they made, and the hilarious levity of 
their general proceedings, seemed to be a truly sublime performance 
by gentlemen of their regular habits and usually grave and reverend 
demeanour. But the glories of that bath were enough to send any 
man into temporary oblivion of all but his own delight. 
About sunset we had supper. There was no regular cook in the 
camp, the bulk of the cooking all through the expedition falling to my 
share, ably assisted by Mr. Bailey during the manufacture of porridge. 
I believe he had already a dark suspicion that he was to be fed on 
porridge all through the trip. Whether this arose from his knowledge 
of Caledonian habits, or was caused by a sight of the formidable 
array of bags of oatmeal in camp, is a question not yet fully explained. 
Next morning we had breakfast at 7 o'clock, Mr. Bailey per- 
sonally superintending the porridge, which he stirred with a stick cut 
from an adjoining Eucalyptus corymhosa. Previous to this trip I 
would have called it bloodwood. 
Then came the adjustment of packs and the selection of all things 
most urgently required. Each boy took about 50 lb., Whelan and 
myself carrying 40 lb. besides our guns and ammunition. Mr. Broad- 
bent and Harold also took their share, and Mr. Bailey carried a 
handbag and his specimen satchel. 
On a lovely morning we crossed the creek and started up the 
long, grass-covered, lightly-timbered slopes of Barnard's Spur, all the 
peaks of Wooroonooran rising ahead outlined against the clear blue 
sky, Sophia on the left, and the Main Eange on the right. From the 
crest of Barnard's Spur we looked down on either side into deep, dark, 
scrub-covered ravines. 
Below us on the right roared the long row of splendid falls down the 
gorge where Tringilburra Creek descends 700 feet in a mile. Away to 
the north was the inlet country, and Cairns nestling white and silent 
on the shores of the blue Pacific. At noon we reach the summit at 
1,700 feet. Here is the site of an old blacks' camp that must have 
sheltered a hundred. It gives a splendid view of all "Wooroonooran 
with Chooreechillum rising away towards the south. It formed a 
lookout station as well as a camp, and was evidently a favourite place 
of residence. What scenes had been witnessed in the old days by the 
beautiful trees that stand around that camp and look down into it 
with their green faces, in voiceless silence ! Here was the last of the 
open forest country. We were to be hidden away in thick tropical 
jungle until we returned to this point of our journey. 
We descended on an old blacks' track through dense scrub down 
700 feet on a very deep descent into the junction of the two creeks at 
the Whelanian Pools. 
